


Consequence

by ObsidianJade



Series: Burn 'verse [4]
Category: Bon Jovi
Genre: Angst, M/M, Power Dynamics, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-13
Updated: 2013-04-13
Packaged: 2017-12-08 10:08:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/760163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObsidianJade/pseuds/ObsidianJade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every action has its consequence. Sometimes, it’s to send everything spinning out of control.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Consequence

**Author's Note:**

> Set on 2nd April 2013, centering around Richie’s abrupt, and thus far unexplained, departure from the tour.
> 
> DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fiction. All characters appearing herein are based on real people, who are the property of themselves. Absolutely no disrespect, offense, or harm is intended or implied and no profit is made.

____________________________________________________________

“Well,” David said, his voice loud in the hollow, ringing silence, the kind of silence that only ever follows screaming and slammed doors, “you fucked _that_ up.”

“Shut _up_ , Lemma,” I spit, levering myself up off the floor, where Richie’s punch had landed me. There was a distant ache in my lip and the taste of salt and metal in my mouth. The emotions I could sense from Tico were bundled into a confusing rush, _shock-dismay-concern-pride-amusement-fear_ , enough to make me dizzy.

_‘You fucking well deserved it,’_ David thinks at me, hard and bitter, like he’d wrapped the thought in razor wire before throwing it into my head, and when I try to glare a question at him, Tico uncrosses his arms, steps forward, and pokes me in the lip. 

It’s instinct to jerk away from him, but it doesn’t stop me from catching his thought - _‘if you ever told me you owned me I wouldn’t stop with just one hit -’_ and when he holds his hand up, there’s a bright splash of red on his fingertip. 

“He got you good,” Tico tells me, voice level and calm and like he’s not witnessing the past three fucking decades falling down around our ears. 

I scrub the back of my hand over my jaw, distantly aware that I’m smearing blood all over my chin and not really caring. It’ll heal by showtime regardless, and I’ve got a few bigger problems than my goddamned mouth right now, like the fact that my guitarist just walked out on me like he never intends to come back. 

“He wasn’t serious,” I mutter instead, and even as I say it I can’t help wondering who the fuck I’m lying to. Maybe Dave can’t Read like I can, but he’s known Richie just as long as I have, and Richie isn’t real big on mixed signals. 

Tico folds his arms again and leans back, his shoulder settled comfortably against Dave’s chest. Dave stopped short of tucking his thumbs through Tico’s beltloops, but the possessiveness was plenty clear. I’d fucked up with my own pet, stay away from his. 

“Oh, it’s like that, is it?” I snap, sotto voice, sharp and high and a little mocking. _‘Really, David? You’re challenging me_ now _?’_

“It’s not a challenge,” Dave answers calmly, but he loops his arms around Tico’s shoulders anyway, resting his chin on the drummer’s head. “Just a statement.” 

It takes me a second to process that he answered my mental question out loud. 

“A statement,” I echo, incredulous, because the last thing I need right now is rebellious shit from a guy who’s been under my protection for the last several decades, but he meets my eyes, and he does it with no fear. 

“You don’t own us, Jon,” he tells me, calm and level and defiant. “You will not own us, not without our permission, and our permission is retracted as of right now.”

“You think you can just walk away from me?” My voice is a whisper, a hard rasp that the fans will never hear, a sound as ugly and monstrous as Richie had accused me of being a few minutes ago. 

A few minutes before he’d walked out. You see, a Pure Soul is loyal to the very end of their days. But the thing was, I’d tainted him. Made him something less. All so that I could _keep_ him. 

Funny, how that works out. 

“If we walked away now, Jon, what exactly would you be able to do about it?” Dave asks me, a hint of a smirk on the corners of his mouth. “Tico got his memories back months ago, and you can’t take mine.”

He leans forward a little, shielding Tico a bit more, and smirks at me. “You can probably manage tonight’s show without a guitarist. But without the whole band?”

I don’t have an answer for that, don’t have a solution at the other end of a phone call, and I bite my tongue hard enough that it bleeds to keep myself from spitting in his face. 

Dave’s emanating triumph as he shifts, loops his arm around Tico’s shoulder and starts guiding the drummer to the door. “You’re still our leader, Jon. But I think it’s past time for the balance of power to shift a little around here.” Halfway out of the dressing room, he glances back over his shoulder with a smirk and a wink. “What about now?”

He pulls the door shut behind him, and I watch the last thirty years fall to pieces as he does.


End file.
